Smart cities to succeed on inter-state competition: Padode

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Pratap Padode, Founder and Director of the Smart Cities Council of India, discusses the various criteria for the Smart City programme.

With PM Narendra Modi pressing the need of smart cities, dreaming of 100 smart cities remains no more a far-fetched reality. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Pratap Padode, Founder and Director of the Smart Cities Council of India, discusses the various criteria for the Smart City programme.

He informed that implementation of guidelines and choosing which cities deserve funding is being controlled at the Centre by an apex committee while everything else is devolved to two different levels--state and city.

“The government has mandated that citizen groups need to be involved in consultative process,” he added.

Padode stressed the need for competition among states for efficiently enhanced planning on funding for infrastructure purposes and working on economically sustainable projects.